


Make Good All Your Lies

by PanBoleyn



Series: White Dragon, White Wolf [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ADWD spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:39:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lyanna bears two children and dies at the Tower of Joy, and Ned Stark, one of the worst liars in Westeros, is taught to spin a tale to protect them all - and keep their honor too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Good All Your Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Visenya's mine, that's it.

She might have lived, had there only been one child. But even though Lyanna can tell that she is slipping away, even if she came to hate Rhaegar in the end when he would not let her go, she cannot regret the children in her arms. The girl with a fuzz of silver Targaryen hair, the boy with a dusting of the dark Stark hair, and both of them peering up at her with eyes of Stark grey. They both have her eyes, and she is more glad of that than she could imagine.

 

The midwife gently takes them from her and Lyanna would object if her vision was not already blurring, her eyelids heavy. But then the door slams open and Ned is there, dear Ned whose gaze travels from her to the babies in the midwife's arms, and he looks like his heart is breaking. Oh, and Howland behind him, who she took up armor for once... But it's her brother she focuses on now. “Ned...” Lyanna whispers and he drops to his knees by her bed, hand gripping hers.

 

“Protect them, Ned, please. From Rhaegar, from Robert...” She doesn't know if the war is over, who won, but she knows that she trusts neither Rhaegar nor Robert with the fate of her children. “Take me home... Promise me, Ned.”

 

She forces her eyes to remain open long enough to hear him swear that he'll do what she asks, and then she falls away into darkness, and maybe a little peace.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Ned cannot believe he rode this far only to hold his sister's hand as she died, leaving behind twin children that he... What is he to do with them? The midwife told him that Rhaegar had been certain Lyanna would bear a daughter, had spoken of how she must be called Visenya, and so Ned imagines he should call the girl that, for now at least. Another name will have to be found later, to hide her true parentage, but for now it serves. The boy... Had he been there when his lady wife gave birth to their son he would have asked her to call him Jon for the man who was his father in so many ways, and so he thinks of the boy as Jon.

 

He rides to Starfall because he owes the Daynes this much. Ser Arthur was a true knight, a man of valor and honor, and Ned wishes he hadn't had to kill him. The elder Daynes and their heir, Allem, take the news with quiet composure, and they seem to appreciate that he returned their family sword to them. Ned, who carries Ice now, thinks that he could have done no less – had he been the one to perish, he would have hoped that someone would have taken Ice to Winterfell, for Benjen to wield until his son by Catelyn could take it up.

 

Ashara Dayne is nowhere to be seen, until Ned is preparing to depart. He has hired a wet nurse away from the Dayne household – he had to – for Visenya and Jon, to care for them until he figures out what in the name of the gods old and new he's going to do. Robert will kill them if he finds out, because while he may have loved Lyanna he also bore Elia Martell no ill will, and yet he nodded approvingly over the bodies of the Dornish princess and her children. The sight had left Ned ill even then, and the memory haunts him all the more now that he has a niece and nephew who could well suffer the same fate.

 

“They're her children, aren't they?” Ashara's voice rings out behind him and Ned turns, fingers tightening on the bridle of his horse. Once, at Harrenhal, he had found the Lady Ashara beautiful and more than that, kind and pleasant company. There were times after, back at the Vale, when Robert had japed about it, about Ned being half in love with her. He had not been, but he'd thought he could be. Now, of course, he is married and her brother's blood is on his hands.

 

Shaking the thoughts aside, he says, “I do not know what you mean, my lady. The twins are my natural children.” The lie sticks in his throat, but it's the only story he'd been able to think of. How he will explain Visenya's hair he does not know, but how else to justify returning north with two children not his wife's?

 

Ashara laughs at him, mocking but not terribly cruel. “You will need to tell that lie better before you reach Winterfell, Lord Stark. Targaryen children to hide, and you do that by claiming them as your own?”

 

“They are Starks, my sister's children.”

 

“And they are Targaryens, Rhaegar's bastards.”

 

“He married her, before a heart tree.”

 

“He was not free to do it.”

 

There's no point to this, and he needs to leave. “My lady, this argument will serve us nothing. It is done, and I am sorry, for the loss of your brother, the death of your royal mistress and her children. I know she was your friend as well, and also... What the Lannister men did was cruel, it should never have been.”

 

The smile that curves her lips is cold, self-satisfied in a strange way, and Ned is confused enough, curious enough at this unexpected response, that he follows with Wylla and the babes trailing him when Ashara tilts her head. She leads him up to a room at almost the very top of the tower, and he finds himself staring down at a boy who is not yet two, with Targaryen white hair and violet eyes. “Aegon,” he says, stunned. “But... They...”

 

The child's head had been smashed to a bloody pulp, Ned remembers (cannot forget). Cruelty far beyond what needed to be done. The children should not have died, Princess Elia should not have died, but Tywin's monsters had not even given them the small mercy of easy deaths. But perhaps there was a twisted mercy given by the gods in what had happened to that boy, in that it meant no one would be able to say that was not Aegon, even though...

 

He should not do what he is thinking of. But... “What are you going to do with him?”

 

“Protect him,” Ashara says, defiant. “Until his time comes.”

 

“He will never sit the Iron Throne.”

 

“Are you a seer now, Lord Stark?”

 

She'd called him Ned at Harrenhal, and he had thought himself half in love with her. Had thought he could love her, truly, had they had the chance for it. But things are different now, blood and pain and war stands between them, and his marriage besides. He wishes to argue with her but he does not. Let her cling to a hope that he does not understand, for why would anyone want the Targaryens back on the throne after Aerys?

 

_Father, Brandon, I carry your burdens and I was not meant for them..._

 

It's reckless, it's mad, it's the wolf blood he never had. Perhaps it is the same wildness that Lyanna felt, when she let Rhaegar Targaryen spirit her away (because they knew, the Stark boys, Lyanna must have told him yes). But Ned knows he cannot keep his vow to Lyanna, not completely and not on his own. “You're going to run with him.”

 

“Of course – he is too Targaryen to blend in even here, anywhere in Westeros.”

 

“So is she,” Ned whispers, and Ashara's eyes narrow to slits. “Lyanna's daughter, Visenya. The midwife said, Rhaegar expected a girl and not a boy, he wanted Visenya.”

 

“And you will give him what he wanted?”

 

“It's... honorable. Even though he was far from it. Please, my lady, I cannot... I cannot hide her, a child with silver hair, for all she has Lyanna's eyes. She deserves her family, someone of her blood. If she cannot have her uncles and Winterfell... Please.”

 

“Aegon had a sister. The Lannisters' men murdered her.”

 

“He has another, and a brother. He and Jon will never know each other, but Jon will at least have my boy, his cousin. Would you deny Aegon and Visenya any of their family? Robert is sending his brother after Rhaella and Viserys, they...” Robert will kill them too, and the babe Rhaella is carrying, Ned knows it, and a treacherous part of him hopes that Stannis fails. There has been enough innocent blood spilled for the 'crime' of being Targaryen.

 

Ashara looks at the boy in his cradle, then back at Ned. “Two Targaryen heirs to hide. And one for you to take as well. Your great good friend would have your head for this.”

 

“Robert is not an evil man.”

 

“No?”

 

No, but... _“Dragonspawn.”_ Robert's word. He is as mad as a Targaryen himself when it comes to them, Ned knows. And when he has to tell Robert about Lyanna... That will only make it worse. “He isn't,” Ned insists, but he knows Ashara Dayne will not believe him.

 

“Leave the girl with me and take the boy to your frozen North, then. I should thank you,” Ashara says with a harsh laugh. “Or you should thank me. You've given me a tragedy fit to throw myself from the cliffs for, and I've given you a mother for your bastard son.”

 

He sees her plan – to pretend to take her own life, then flee with the babes. And he is to encourage the rumor that they were lovers, that he took their son from her after killing her brother, and that is why she chose to die. It is a horrible story that will stain both their names, but it is a story that makes just enough sense to hold. Especially if he never outright tells it, or outright denies it.

 

But he cannot say the words to agree, so he merely nods. “You have my thanks.”

 

“Save them. It's for Aegon, so he will not grow alone.”

 

 _And so he will have a bride?_ Ned wonders. The Targaryens had always wed brother to sister, and he thinks he may well have just given away his niece in marriage as much as guardianship. But he cannot stop it, and this is the only way to protect them all. Visenya, Jon, even Aegon, who is nothing to him but deserves this chance at life.

 

He leaves Starfall with Howland, a wet nurse, and a boy he says nothing of, but all the long ride home to Winterfell people mark that he has the Stark look. They whisper of Ashara Dayne, the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, and how she threw herself from the cliffs of Starfall. _For a lost brother_ , they say at first, and then they add, _for a lost love and a lost son_.

 

Ned need say nothing at all, and Howland never asks what became of the girl. For that he is grateful. But when Catelyn and her son arrive... What will he say then? What _can_ he say then?

 

~ ~ ~

 

Catelyn Tully – no, Catelyn _Stark_ – rides into Winterfell with her baby boy in a sling across her chest. Robb fusses a little as she is helped from her mount, but he goes as quiet as she when Ned Stark approaches her. She lifts her chin and smiles at him, still unsure of this man who is so unlike Brandon, but his kiss is gentle and his hands, when he reaches for Robb and she gives her son to his father, are even more so. He holds their child as though he is made of glass and something in her warms to him.

 

Something which turns to cold ice when he is leading her toward the nursery and she hears a baby's cry echo down the corridor. For a long moment she does not understand, but then she realizes what it must be. Another child... Not her child, but if the babe is here then... “What child is that?” she demands, and only her pride keeps her voice steady. Ned Stark looks at her with such anguish in her eyes that her questions die in her throat, for the moment at least.

 

Perhaps a child of one of the men, she tells herself wildly, or a wet nurse's own babe. She knows already that this is folly, but when Ned settles Robb in the cradle prepared for him, Catelyn forces herself to walk to the other cradle. The other child is quiet now, and peers up at her with grey eyes. Stark grey.

 

Brandon would never have been true to her, Catelyn knew that when she saw how free he was with the ladies at Harrenhal. A sensible woman accepts such things; men have needs, and will indulge as they wish. A woman who fights it only earns herself misery. Even bastards are a thing that must be taken calmly, as they are a natual consequence that a decent man does not ignore. But Brandon would never – almost no man of their rank would ever – bring a bastard into his home, into the nursery meant for his trueborn children.

 

She had hoped she would have to turn away less, with Brandon's serious younger brother. This is... This is far worse than any discourtesy Brandon might have done her with his women.

 

Catelyn turns on her new husband when he takes her to the chambers that will be hers. He is saying something about how they are the warmest chambers in Winterfell but she does not hear it. “You will raise your bastard with your trueborn children?” she asks, and even as she says it she hopes that she is wrong. Perhaps it's only for a short time, until the boy is weaned, and then he will be fostered. If the mother is dead, it is... perhaps the kindest thing. It is unusual, and she still does not like it, but it's tolerable.

 

Ned Stark stares at her, and he opens his mouth as though to speak, and then closes it and turns away. “I cannot do this,” she hears him whisper, and it makes no sense.

 

“Cannot do what, my lord?” she asks, and her tone is milder now, because some of her anger is gone, replaced with confusion.

 

“I meant to call him mine, but I find...” He turns back to her, grief clear to see in his eyes. “I find that I cannot tell you what I ought, for all our sakes. I find that I... owe you more than that.”

 

There is something more here than the matter of a bastard where he does not belong. For a moment, Catelyn almost wants to tell him _no, do not tell me, I do not wish to know_. But she does; she needs to know why the boy is here.

 

“He is Lyanna's,” her husband tells her in a voice so soft she almost cannot hear. Lyanna's? But then...

 

“Prince Rhaegar's son.”

 

“Yes. I... I could not, Robert... He is a good man but when it comes to the Targaryens he has no sense, only rage. He did not condemn the murder of Elia Martell and, and her children, he approved of it. I could not – my lady, do you see why I could not let anyone know Jon is my sister's son?”

 

Catelyn heard the rumors of what happened in King's Landing before she left Riverrun. The little princess stabbed again and again, the baby prince's head dashed against a wall. Elia Martell raped and murdered. She can see why Ned does not want it known that a child of Rhaegar Targaryen survives, yes, but...

 

“So you must claim him as your own, slander your name and dishonor me?”

 

“I have said nothing, claimed nothing, but what else can I do?”

 

Catelyn is silent, because for a moment she cannot see another path either. The boy has the Stark look already, and it will likely only become more so as he grows. They can only hope, for if he grows to look Targaryen... Even the fact that Ned is the King's closest friend will not save him. But the thought of pretending to bear her husband's bastard in her home is...

 

“Say he is Brandon's,” she says, wildly. “There is enough time, only just, to say that Brandon left a Northwoman with child and you are raising his bastard in your brother's memory.” It is also unusual to raise bastards of the lord's family with his own children, but under the circumstances people will simply think it a quirk in her husband caused by grief for so much loss, and a need to salvage all he can of his family.

 

If the boy were truly Brandon's, she would be worried, afraid that her husband would one day ask the King to legitimize his brother's only issue, disinheriting himself and his children out of some sense of … justice, she supposes. But Ned's goal is to hide the boy from Robert's attention, not to draw his eye, and the boy is Lyanna's in any case, so there is no risk of that. “People will believe it of him sooner than of you, my lord.”

 

“I cannot sully my brother's memory.”

 

“But you can tarnish your own name, you can dishonor me?” Catelyn asks. “I am sorry for your losses, my lord, and I want to help you protect your sister's son. Brandon would want to do the same, would he not?”

 

“Of course he would. But, my lady-”

 

“Brandon is dead. He cannot care about his name, and he was known to have an easy charm with women. It will cause no one to think of him differently if he is named as a bastard boy's father. It will change how you are seen, how I am seen. You say you made no claim of the boy's parentage, claim him as Brandon's now.”

 

“Jon.”

 

“What?”

 

“Jon Snow. Lyanna's boy... _Brandon's_ boy, to the world. His name is Jon Snow.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

Illyrio Mopatis, the man Varys the Spider brought Ashara to, is the one who puts Ashara and Jon Connington together, when Aegon is five and Visenya not yet four. Ashara has been dyeing Aegon's hair blue, because it makes his violet eyes look blue as well. She dyes Visenya's hair black, because Stark eyes need no disguise but Targaryen silver hair does. Aegon takes the name Young Griff and is claimed as Jon – Griff's – son. They spend much of their time hidden on the poleboat Shy Maid. Ashara and Visenya take a house in Pentos, paid for by Illyrio, and go by Elia and Trisana, mother and daughter. Griff is Elia's brother, they say, and so the true siblings call each other “cousin” when others can hear.

 

Ashara looks at Aegon and sees Elia. Jon looks at Aegon and sees all that remains of Rhaegar, the man he loved. They both see their future king.

 

Jon looks at Visenya and sees the Northern whore who bewitched Rhaegar to madness. Ashara looks at Visenya and sees Rhaella, in the quiet moments with Rhaenys and Viserys when the broken queen wore a true smile. There is nothing in her they both see.

 

Jon Snow is raised alongside his trueborn cousins at Winterfell. He and Robb are close as twins, for all that one of them is all Stark in look and the other all Tully. They are not quite three when Ned and Catelyn's daughter Sansa is born, but both of them chatter about how they will protect her always, like knights and their ladies in the songs. He loves his uncle and aunt as the only parents he has ever known, and he pesters Maester Luwin and Old Nan for stories of his father Brandon. He asks about his mother, but no one knows who she is.

 

Ned Stark looks at Jon and he sees Lyanna, and Brandon too, the family he lost too soon to death. Catelyn Tully Stark sees a boy who in spite of herself, becomes as much hers as her own children. Both of them, though, see how in certain lights Jon's grey eyes hold a glint of purple, and they wonder if there is dragon in him after all.

 

Jon dreams of a great city that he has never seen, of square towers and heat like he has never felt. He dreams of buildings with tiled roofs and a great red temple. He wakes from these dreams restless, and he cannot do anything but wander the halls of Winterfell seeking something he cannot find.

 

Visenya dreams of stone walls that are warm to the touch, of a practice yard alive with the clang of swords and the laughter of children. She dreams of snow in summer and a hot spring pool, of a tree with white bark and red leaves and a face in the trunk. She wakes from these dreams with a sense of longing, and sits by her window until the dawn, wishing for nameless things.

 

(Later, Jon dreams of a white-scaled dragon.)

 

(Later, Visenya dreams of a white direwolf with red eyes.)


End file.
